Finding Our Way
by Liv Wilder
Summary: "She hears him, more than sees him. That soft scrape of shoe leather on the hardwood of her living room floor tells her that he's leaving." Post 5x02. One-Shot. Because I was feeling left out, and it's not Monday yet, and they left it dangling...just begging to be written. COMPLETE


_**Disclaimer: I own nothing Castle related, unless you count the photos I took outside his loft today.**_

_**Post 5x02 One Shot, because it felt a little unfinished to me, and heck, do I even need an excuse?**_

* * *

_**Finding Our Way**_

She hears him, more than sees him. That soft scrape of shoe leather on the hardwood of her living room floor tells her that he's leaving.

He's leaving?

She can hear him pivot, sees him in her mind's eye performing a graceful one-eighty for such a big, powerful guy, and then his footsteps retreat softly towards her front door.

He's really leaving.

They've just admitted to one another that they don't know how to do this. But she thought they both meant how to be single in public, and this – _them_ - in private. She's worried that they'll implode, just like Miles Haxton suggested, and she was honest enough to tell him that, lay her fears right out in front of him.

But he's still leaving.

She thought she'd come up with an elegant solution – talk about dating other people, without actually _dating_ other people – and he'd agreed, eagerly. The light in his eyes when she faintly threatened him with her gun…the way he'd looked at her then… Oh God, and she almost…because she feels it, she does…so very much.

And now he's leaving.

She wanted to kiss him sixty seconds after he showed up at her door, an apology immediately spilling from his lips. But he hurt her with his all too enthusiastic acceptance of a date with that 'Ursula Andress-come-female octopus' of a woman. She's worried her insistence that they appear single in public gave him a free pass, a 'best girlfriend ever' free pass to do whatever the hell he likes in public to keep their relationship private. And now it has come so close to damaging this tender, nascent thing they have between them; planting seeds of doubt in her mind about him and other women, as if such seeds needed planting in the first place; her mind an all too fertile place, too ready to nurture even weeds such as those.

So she couldn't kiss him because she wasn't been able to get the image of that woman, astride him on the sofa she and he had made their own over these last few weeks, out of her head. The sex-pot's garish pink bikini and clashing red lipstick smeared all over him like sickly sweet jam on a slice of toast – an image that was sticking with her like glue as she pulled her knees up to her chest, the comforter along with them, shivers making her body tremble.

She wasn't rejecting him, she just needed time – seconds, a few whole minutes maybe – to gather herself and bleach away those images, to convince herself that they were stronger than this now, that he was not that man anymore. She knew him better than that.

But he was leaving without knowing any of this.

She hears the soft snick of the lock, a faint protest from her front door's old hinges and…

* * *

"_Rick?_"

His Christian name flies out of her mouth sounding panicked, before she has even thought to form the word.

The front door clicks closed again, and for a heart-stopping second she doesn't know on which side of it he stands. A missed heart-beat later, and to her great relief she hears large, heavy strides eating up the distance between her entryway and the bedroom door, followed by a quiet, tentative knock on the doorframe, accompanied by the appearance of a thick, dark head of hair and a cautious, questioning smile coasting below such blue eyes.

"Everything okay?" he asks, gaze locking with hers, clearly unsure of what he's going to find there.

"You're…are you…were you _leaving_?" she asks, blinking rapidly in the soft glow cast by her bedside lamp.

"I…well, _yeah_. I thought that's…I thought that's what you wanted," he says, the statement bald and uncomplicated by criticism as he edges halfway through the bedroom door to hover near the corner of her dresser. "You walked away, Kate. And that's not a criticism. I understand…you said it was too soon. I thought…maybe _space_?" he suggests with a questioning uplift to his voice and a shrug of his shoulders, just now realizing that maybe he had headed down the wrong track, desperate as he was not to make this any worse.

"Castle, I didn't mean for you to leave," she says, a hint of exasperation coating the soft center of her statement.

"You didn't?" His tone is surprised.

"No. Why would you even…?"

She's shaking her head, but they both know why. Four years of push and pull. Their own private tug-of-war, only recently ended in a gloriously, satisfying truce.

"Please come over here?" she asks a little sternly, though her irritation is giving way to humor as she pats the comforter on _his_ side of _her_ bed.

"Should I stay dressed for this or…?"

The tease is back in his eyes, uncertainty momentarily banished by all that is Rick Castle - cocky and childish and adorably sexy and now..._hers_.

"Might be best," she retorts, putting him on the back foot again, and why exactly is she doing this – to punish him? "Wouldn't want you having to get dressed again if this doesn't go well. That could be awkward."

He can't get a read on her. He thought they'd fixed this satisfactorily. Now he's not so sure.

Still, he sits down on the edge of her bed, toeing off his shoes, and then he swings his legs up so he can lean on the headboard beside her. He leaves a couple of inches between them, but he can still feel the body heat radiating off her skin, smell the warm spice of her body lotion, and when his eyes drop to her raised knees, he imagines those long legs folded up beneath the sheets, exposed below the short length of her sleep shirt, and he has to force himself to stare at the wall just to get through this without reaching for her.

* * *

"Castle," she begins, but he can't let her finish whatever it is she's about to say without getting one important point across first.

"Kate, can I just say something here?" he asks, startling her a little with his cut-across. But a quick glance at her reveals relief in her eyes too, so he plows on.

"When you joked, at least I'm hoping it was a joke, that you have a gun so I don't really have a choice about…about the whole dating other people thing…?"

"Mmm?" she nods, holding her breath for what's coming next, because if he's changed his mind about them being exclusive…

"You _do_ know that when I said I _clearly_ didn't have a choice that it had nothing to do with your skill as a markswoman? You _do_ know that, _right_?" he asks, swiveling on the bed to an accompanying whisper of linen as he turns, needing to see her face, her eyes, that understanding he hopes will be there waiting for him.

"I don't have a choice because I don't _want_ a choice, Kate," he explains softly. "This whole '_single in public'_ thing was your idea," he reminds her gently.

"Yes, but that date was _all yours_," she blurts out in a sudden flash of emotion and anger. Hurt and fear the twin embers left smoldering, clearly not as spent as she thought, because it still pains her.

"And it was dumb. But like I said, I'm no good at this game of pretend. I _clearly_ don't have a choice because…because I'm in love with you, Kate," he says, taking her hand, freeing it from the ball of fabric she has bunched up in her fingers. "I can't _bear_ the thought of anyone else touching you. Never could. But _now_…?" he shivers, his head shaking a little, a frown creasing his brow, and she almost wants to laugh, giddy at this new declaration of love; just the words she needed to hear tonight, his timing perfect for once.

"I love you, and so _maybe_…maybe keeping this a secret isn't the smartest idea we've ever had."

Kate turns towards him a little, her knees dropping so she can angle her body closer to his.

He holds onto her hand the whole time, keeping them connected through this one point of contact alone. But it's enough for now because she needs a clear head for this next part.

"So…what are you _saying_? That we should _tell_ everybody, make some big announcement or just…"

Because maybe she's sick of pretending too, and maybe she's _proud_ of who they are now, and _maybe_…maybe it's time that he knew - this secret that's been burning a hole in her pocket for months. This secret that her best friend and her therapist already know, when the one person who _should know_…is sitting right here on her bed late at night, looking at her as if she's the only woman he's ever loved. Looking at her as if she is the _answer_ for him; that piece in the puzzle of life he's spent four decades searching for, and four years trying to make his own.

"Castle, I love you too," she says, all in a breathy rush, heart pounding, her cheeks flaming as the words tumble free of her chest for the first time, and a giant hot-air balloon of tension and worry breaks free of its mooring, finally untethered and able to fly free.

Her eyes are shining with unshed tears, but her face is lit up with a smile he wishes he could capture and hold onto forever. Because Kate Beckett, _his Kate_, the woman he has worked alongside, dogging her every step, worming his way back in after countless mistakes, the woman he's been devoted to for nearly two years has just told him that she loves him for the very first time, on her own terms, without fear of imminent death or mortal peril to force it from her lips.

She just loves him.

"You _mean_ that?" he asks, a little stupidly, because he already knows deep in his heart that she must love him, any fool could see it after just five minutes in their company. But she just said it out loud, and it means more than it should, he knows that, but somehow it just means _everything_.

Kate is nodding vigorously now, a hopeful, excited expression on her face, looking like she's about to burst while she waits for him to say something.

* * *

When he kisses her, her cheeks held carefully between his two hands, it really does feel different to both of them. Three little words and they are sealed to one another, that shared secret a balm to soothe every hurt they've ever caused one another.

"So," he says finally, clearing his emotion-constricted throat when they manage to part, an unrestrained grin breaking out on his face that immediately draws a matching one from her, eyes shining brightly. "We…what do we tell people?"

Kate's about to open her mouth to concoct something sensible, something PR-worthy, when he interjects.

"Can I just tell people you're in love with me? Cause one look at my stupid face and the game'll be up anyway?"

Kate claps both hands over her mouth, trying to stifle the laughter that bubbles free. But she isn't nearly fast enough, and it echoes around the quiet of her bedroom anyway; skipping and bouncing around the walls like a carefree child in summer.

"You're so beautiful when you laugh, Kate Beckett," he says, driven to awe all over again, his eyes tracking her every movement, mirroring everything she's feeling, everything they've become thanks to one another.

"We're together," she says quietly, hiding her smile with the downward tilt of her head and a bashful nip at her bottom lip. "I…I don't like…I mean, this doesn't feel like _dating_ to me. Does…? I mean that doesn't seem _enough_ somehow…to describe what this is, what we have. Do you…?"

"Agree?" he asks, trying to help her out as she stumbles to find the words for what they've become so very fast, after four years of waiting and wondering and wanting.

"Yes?" she asks, eager for him to catch up. Because she's been over-thinking this, trying to define them since she knew they were headed back to the Precinct, and the chance of them being discovered seemed so high.

"I like _together_," he replies, taking her hand again. "Seems…"

"More grown-up?" suggests Kate, slipping her finger inside his cuff to smooth over the soft, sensitive skin beneath.

"_That_, and more…solid, _permanent_," he ventures, a little boldly, bolstered by her so very recent declaration of love.

"Permanent?" echoes Kate, nodding shyly and smiling at him; mischief making her eyes twinkle. "Like '_third time's a charm_' kind of permanent?" she asks out of pure devilment.

But he looks completely unfazed by her little joke, and now she's not sure who's more scared.

"Like, '_you're stuck with me'_, Detective. That kind of permanent," he replies, smoothing his fingers over the back of her hand as he drinks her in. "You don't have to propose right away, but you should know that I favor the princess cut," he adds, making her laugh all over again, and if he can just keep drawing that magical sound out of her beautiful mouth for the next forty years, then he will die a happy man and never tire a day for hearing it.

"So…that's settled then," she says, letting her legs extend under the covers as she straightens the comforter over them. "Now, go shower so I can show you exactly what '_together'_ means, because you're not getting into this bed until every last trace of that harpy is washed clean off your body."

His hand is around the faucet, turning the water to scalding before she even finishes the sentence, because they need this; as a cleanse, a reaffirmation, a celebration, and hell…she _loves_ him, so just…_yeah_…

He is _so_ not leaving now.

* * *

A/N: This was written at 35,000 feet, so if it's a little wooly in places I'm blaming a lack of oxygen.

Final chapter of All The Mornings Ever After should be up soon for those who've been asking/begging/threatening. I'm looking out over the Hudson River right now, and I walked to the corner of Broome and Crosby today to pay homage to the home of my muse. Castle's loft looks just the same as it does on TV. Probably for the best that it's not real or I would have been engaging in a little B&E!

Have a great weekend.

Liv


End file.
